China was silent on its 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution

Mainland media met the 50th anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution with silence in a reflection of Beijing’s eagerness to contain discussion and avoid embarrassment over one of the most tumultuous periods in Chinese history.

A party directive issued on May 16, 1966, that launched a campaign to rid the country of “representatives of the bourgeoisie” plunged the nation into 10 years of turmoil and violent class struggle that would leave at least 1.72 million dead.

In a speech on China’s economy first made public last Tuesday, President Xi Jinping called the revolution a “decade of catastrophe” that had stalled the country’s industrialization.

But when the anniversary arrived, while international media dug through photo and story ­archives to provide extensive coverage, official Chinese outlets such as People’s Daily stayed away from the topic.

The website ifeng.com, which belongs to the Hong Kong-based Phoenix Media Group, briefly ran a piece featuring street interviews with people on the mainland, ­asking them their thoughts on the revolution.

One woman, asked for the worst part of the revolution, ­replied that it was the Nanking Massacre – an event which in fact happened almost 30 years earlier, in 1937 during the Japanese invasion of China.

A man said he had no memory of what happened in “ancient times,” while some said they would take part in the revolution because “everyone was doing it.”

Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon

The report was deleted from the website, then reappeared and was deleted for a second time.

This month’s publication of Yanhuang Chunqiu, a monthly political magazine run by party liberals, was delayed a week as its editors and censor disagreed over articles on the revolution. One article was removed, a source close to the magazine said.

No official commemoration was held on the mainland, following the lead of previous anniversary dates, and online discussions on Weibo were ­censored.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei offered a single sentence in response to a question about the anniversary in ­yesterday’s daily press briefing.

“The Chinese government ­already made the correct verdict on it long ago,” Hong said. 

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse.

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